Between Us Girls (15 page)

She heard the bedrail go down and sensed a weight on the mattress. A soft hand touched her arm.

Well, that seemed real enough.

“Liv.” It was Jasmyn, her voice firmer. “You look a little peaked, that's all. But my goodness, who wouldn't after what you've been through?” She spoke as if Liv were fully engaged. “Other than that, you look wonderful.”

Wonderful?
Right. Liv hooted in the silent way she had going.

“Can she hear you?” Keagan said.

“You never know. My grandpa was out of it for weeks after his stroke. Then one day he sat up and griped about specific things we had been saying and doing.”

Keagan made a noise that almost resembled a chuckle. “We don't have to worry about Liv griping.”

“No, we don't.” Jasmyn stroked Liv's arm, gently and rhythmically. “She's not like that.”

Silence filled the room.

It was a deep, comfortable silence, and Liv felt embraced by it. One by one the anxious thoughts slipped off into the blurry edges of her mind. The marionette fell gently against the pillow and mattress.

Twenty-Three

In the hospital cafeteria, Keagan leaned across the table until he was almost between Jasmyn and her spoon. She stopped stirring the coffee and looked at him.

He sat back. “Thank you for coming.”

As though she'd had a choice. He had slipped through airport security as if it did not exist, shocked her with
Liv had a heart attack
, and marched off with her beach bag. Now she had missed her flight, had no clothes except the ones on her back, and had no plan in mind. What was she doing?

Jasmyn ripped open two more nondairy creamer pods—she'd already added two others—and poured them into her mug.

“That stuff will kill you.”

Coffee sloshed from the cup. She set the spoon on the white Formica tabletop and clenched her fists on her lap. “I'd do anything for Liv, but I'm a little…”

“Discombobulated?”

“What does that mean?”

“Like it sounds.”

“Hmm. Like I'm a water balloon and I just went
splat
?”

“You got it.” He squeezed a tea bag over his cup. “At the moment, you're mentally halfway to Illinois with an image of a healthy Olivia. You'll catch up to reality shortly.”

“She seemed perfectly fine this morning. Maybe tired, but her usual self.”

“That's how these things happen.”

“But the doctor said she'll be okay, right?” Jasmyn had asked the question at least half a dozen times already, ever since the doctor had spoken to Keagan when they first arrived at the hospital.

“Yes, that's what she said.” Keagan repeated his answer in a tone of infinite patience. “The angioplasty went without a hitch. Liv can go home in a day or two.”

She nodded. Okay. It was serious, but not as bad as it could have been. “I still don't understand why she wants me here. I mean, she has dozens of friends who are closer to her. Inez is closer. You're closer.”

“Inez has her dotty moments, and I'm a guy. Nowhere near the same impact. Her dozens of other friends don't live at the Casa.”

“I don't live at the Casa.”

“She thinks you do.” A corner of his mouth made a tiny indentation. It might have been a smile.

He was actually a nice-looking guy.

“But I
don't
live there. I am on vacation. I have no clothes. Again. No household stuff. No home to put it in if I did.”

Keagan lifted his jacket from the back of his chair and unzipped an inside pocket. “Nothing has been moved out of Cottage Eleven.” He pulled out Liv's stretchy coil key ring and a cell phone and slid them across the table. He fingered a key with a brown dot painted on it. “This is the office key. Inside the top desk drawer you'll find your cottage key. Chad's bringing her van over for you to use. All of our numbers are programmed into her phone. You'll want to let the others know what happened. Organize visits. Probably meals too.”

Jasmyn stared at him.

“A few deep breaths always help.”

“Keagan, I can't.”

“Breathe?”

“No. I can't live here and take care of Liv.”

“Because you were doing something else?”

Not exactly. “She trusts me this much?”

“Is there a reason she shouldn't?”

“Will you stop answering questions with a question?”

“Jasmyn.” He leaned forward again, forcing eye contact. “She trusts you completely. You need to trust yourself.”

She frowned.

“Just now, when we first saw Liv, she was agitated. The moment you started talking, she relaxed. You light up a room, Ms. All Bright. You make a difference. Just be yourself.” He touched her hand, light as the brush of a butterfly wing, and then he stood. “Why did you come back?”

“Because you made me.”

His left eyebrow rose. Clearly he didn't buy that answer.

And clearly, she could have simply said no. Except she hadn't wanted to go home.

“By the way, I already called Piper,” he said. “She'll pick up some clothes for you.”

Jasmyn tried taking a deep breath. It caught in her throat. More clothes. At least Piper was a smart shopper and understood Jasmyn's simple tastes. Except for those neon yellow shoes and the comfy sandals.

Keagan put on his jacket. “And I called Sam.”

“Sam?”

“She'll be the most affected.”

“Sam?” Jasmyn wondered why he thought that about the Casa's most together tenant. What else was she missing about her new friends?

“Drink the tea,” he said. “Skip the coffee. You'll feel better. Later.” He walked away.

Jasmyn wanted to run after him, the only familiar person in this whole weird scene. But fear rooted her to the chair. What had she just agreed to? Or at least not disagreed to?

You light up a room, Ms. Albright.

But he had said it in two distinct words. All Bright.

Just be yourself.

Discombobulated could not begin to describe the turmoil inside of her.

Deep breaths. Drink the tea.

Maybe she should try things Keagan's way.

Twenty-Four

Sam stared at the panel of buttons inside the hospital elevator. The numbers blurred. Which didn't matter a whole lot because she didn't have a clue what floor she wanted.

“Ma'am, are you all right?”

Ma'am
. What was up with
ma'am
? Liv was a
ma'am
. Inez was a
ma'am
. Since turning thirty, Sam had become a
ma'am
to salesclerks and waiters. It was as if there was some rule about age thirty.

She glanced at the person beside her, a woman in greenish scrubs. A short, young woman who probably had not yet been called
ma'am
. “I…” Her heart hammered in her throat, cutting off her voice.

“Where are you going?”

She gulped. “ICU. I can't find it. I keep asking people. I've been on sixteen elevators and down a dozen corridors.”

The woman smiled and punched a button. “This place is a maze. I'll take you to ICU.”

“You don't have to do that.”

“I'd better before you collapse.”

“I've been running.” Which she did several times a week. Therefore she was in good shape. Why couldn't she breathe?

The stranger deposited her at the ICU waiting area. “Good luck.”

Sam found Jasmyn seated on a couch behind a plastic potted palm. “Jasmyn.”

Her friend turned.

Her friend? She'd never had one, not really. She wasn't sure what it entailed.

Jasmyn Albright, the woman she had dropped off at the airport. The one from Illinois who should not be at the hospital and involved with Casa business. The one with the overly sweet voice who liked Canadian bacon and sauerkraut pizza and wanted a job. The one who seemed to enjoy Sam's company.

The one who cared for Liv as much as Sam did.

Jasmyn rose from the couch and wrapped Sam in a tight hug. “They let me see her. She's going to be all right.”

Sam squeezed shut her eyes and held her breath. Big girls didn't cry. Ma'ams certainly did not cry.

But they hugged. It was okay to hug because that's what friends did.

The rest of them arrived, every Casa de Vida resident. Chad, Piper, Riley, little Tasha, Inez, Louis, Coco, Noah. Even Keagan. For that matter, even Sam herself. And, good grief, even Beau, the self-employed handyman who should have been working on a Saturday.

They filled the waiting room with chatter and made it standing room only. An ICU nurse shooed them off. Jasmyn suggested the cafeteria, and the noisy bunch straggled down the hallway.

Sam positioned herself behind Keagan, the only one she trusted to lead them directly there and back.

“Hey,” she said to his shoulder.

He turned halfway, slowing until she was beside him.

“How did you and Jasmyn get in to see her? I thought it was family only.”

“I explained we were the closest thing to family Liv has.” He shrugged. “One nurse bent the rules.”

No stretch of the imagination was needed to believe him. She said, “Can you tell her I'm family too?”

“Are you?”

Sam did not like Sean Keagan. He was aloof and enigmatic and talked like a robot and asked more questions than he answered and he was special to Liv.

He touched her elbow and halted. The others kept on going. “Sam, you are family.”

The lump in her throat returned.

“You and Liv care about each other.”

Sam blinked and blinked. Family…Another concept so cobbled up in her past it meant nothing. “I pay rent. I respect her. She's a good businesswoman. She…she…”

“She makes your home feel like a safe place. She watches over you. She cooks and bakes for you. She prays for your well-being.”

Sam kept blinking, but the heat in her eyes remained.

“Samantha, did no one ever do those things for you?”

Made her feel safe? Cared for her? “My dad,” she whispered. “A long, long…” She took a deep breath. “Time ago.”

Sam didn't know who moved first, but the tears spilled and then his shirt was soaking them up, Keagan's arms around her.

Liv appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but she wasn't exactly herself. Her gray skin matched the matted hair. Her chin was jowly. The ugly blue floral garb hung crookedly at her neck, the furthest thing from L.L. Bean imaginable. Liv would have used it to scrub down the courtyard fountain before wearing it.

Sam exhaled. “Ohhh.”

Behind her, Keagan said, “She'll be fine.”